Semiconductors and intelligent vehicles are two beloved topics for the tech community as well as investors interested in China. In previous posts, Ginger River Review has offered you three stories including , , and . All three of them were well received by our readers. GRR thus wants to bring you a fourth piece into the collection so that the discussion will be more well-rounded.
Co-hosted by China EV100 中国电动汽车百人会 and the government of Jiangning District in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, the "2022 Conference on Innovated Global Supply Chain of NEV and ICV " kicked off on September 6.
Miao Wei 苗圩, the deputy director of Economic Affairs Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conferencee (CPPCC) and former head of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology addressed the event.
Today's piece is a translation of at the conference.
In the speech, Miao expressed his concern over the operating system (OS), calling it "a more urgent and fatal issue than chips, and it is the key to success for intelligent vehicles and (V2X)," adding that though the landscape of global intelligent vehicles is still up in the air, the window left for China is about three years, five years at most.
Miao also elaborated on the relationships between chips and OS, and talked about how progress made in OS may help China out of the current semiconductor predicament.
Beware that the following speech was notes taken by , a Chinese news site, at the event, and the content and GRR’s translation have not been reviewed by the speaker.
The topic of my speech today is "on Key Issues Facing the Automobile Supply Chain."
For the supply chain of NEVs, let's pay attention to chips first.
Regarding the development of chips, chips for consumers hold high standards and the biggest demand for advanced chips, with chips used in smart phones as an example. However, smart cars are equipped with chips only secondary to ones for military use. They must operate in a worse environment compared with chips for consumers and chips for industrial use, and must have a longer lifespan. Moreover, in addition to the general standards, automotive chips must adapt to a series of automobile standards. For example, to test the reliability of chips, we usually use the AEC-Q100 standard, which is generally used in North America. To control the failure rate, we must establish a quality control system for chip makers, in other words, the IATF-16949 standard. This is a standard that automotive chips must meet as we are in line with the international standard now. For , ISO 26262 is another standard needed for certification. Therefore, there are more requirements for automotive chips, and the time needed for certification is longer.
In addition to chips, I would like to talk about software. In the era of computers, dominated the industry. Most PCs around the world operated on the Windows operating system. In the transition from traditional phones to smart phones, Apple Inc. created a closed-source operating system called iOS. In response, Google Android, an open-source operating system free of charge. Thus, in the era of smart phones, Apple occupies 10 to 20 percent of the market share, while the rest of the world's mobile phone companies go with the Android system.
In the past, I saw no problem in using an open-source operating system. However, the US began to clamp down on Huawei two years ago. Besides ceasing the chip supply, it also restricted the use of Android operating system. Instead of restricting Huawei's access to the Android OS, the US limited Huawei's use of apps that are operating on Android OS. As a result, Huawei had to equip smartphones with its HarmonyOS, an operating system originally for industrial use. In this way, Huawei managed to continue the service for customers. Otherwise, it couldn't maintain its customers even in China. But Huawei still lost huge swathes of the overseas market.
For the second part, I'd like to share my views on the development of the automotive chip supply chain.
Let me briefly introduce China's chip development in recent years. In terms of design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, chip design companies have made the fastest progress these years with the development of smart phones. Hisilicon 海思 of Huawei has made it to the world's top ten fabless integrated circuit companies. As I remember, it ranked fifth in its best record. Spreadtrum Communications 展讯 and RDA Microelectronics 锐迪科 also ranked among the world's top ten at one time. [GRR: It is Unigroup that made it to the top 10 in 2017. But Unigroup acquired Spreadtrum and RDA in 2013 and 2014 respectively.] Unfortunately, after the US began to suppress Huawei, Huawei cannot make it to the top 10. Even if chips can be designed, no company provides and manufactures the chips for Huawei. Nevertheless, it's an indisputable fact that we have made fast progress in design capabilities.
In terms of countries, the US ranks first in chip design, with a market share of 68 percent, according to last year's statistics. Ranking second and third are China's Taiwan region and the Chinese mainland, with market shares of 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
As for packaging and testing, China has a strength, and the smallest gap with the world's leading level. Of the world's top ten packaging companies, five are located in Taiwan, and three in the Chinese mainland. The three companies are JCET Group 长电科技, TongFu Microelectronics 通富微电 and Tianshui Huatian Technology 华天科技. The other two are located in the United States and Singapore.
We have met resistance in the tape-out of advanced chips. A solution is to package different types of chips together, which would address our weaknesses in advanced chips to some extent. This is also the mainstream of the international chip industry.
Tape-out is the process that we are left far behind. The best we can manufacture is 14 nm process chips. And because the , we are hampered in making more advanced chips. Although advanced chips are important, its current market share is still small in the global market distribution. The chip shortage that we suffered in recent years are mainly chips with 28 nm process and above, ranging from digital electronics, analog electronics, power semiconductor devices to sensor chips. Therefore, we must consolidate existing advantages first. Since we are not only curbed in the development of advanced chips, the insufficient production capacity for 28 nm chips and above is also a problem. Therefore, we are investing heavily to scale up the production of 28nm and more mature processes
Regarding automotive chips, a small number of AI chips are need in CPU and GPU. It's best to have advanced chips. But if not, there remain other solutions. In terms of the total amount, only a small proportion of automotive chips are advanced chips, and the majority is chips manufactured at mature nodes.
For vehicles, with the development of NEVs, the electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture shifts from decentralized ECU control to a newly designed platform that has centralized . Looking ahead, we will move towards building Central Vehicle Controller (CVC) on the basis of domain controllers. And every step towards centralization will promote the efficiency of automotive chips. Many chips cannot give full play to the on-board computing efficiency due to decentralized control and domain controller. Therefore, the future of vehicles is about marching towards the centralized computing architecture from domain controller. The trend has already been brought up a few years ago, and it's an upward slope.
On this basis, China must make forward-looking overall planning for cloud control platform. Many chip companies participated in the discussions this morning. I said that we all pay attention to the automotive chips used on automobiles. Recently, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed restrictions on Why GPU chips but not Nvidia's Orin chips? Yu Kai [the founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics] later told me that Nvidia's GPU chip is vital for training AI systems, so the US is targeting the vitals. What I'm trying to advocate is that other than focusing on automotive-grade AI chips, we also need to draw attention to training AI chips in the cloud.
Co-hosted by China EV100 中国电动汽车百人会 and the government of Jiangning District in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, the "2022 Conference on Innovated Global Supply Chain of NEV and ICV " kicked off on September 6.
Miao Wei 苗圩, the deputy director of Economic Affairs Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conferencee (CPPCC) and former head of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology addressed the event.
Today's piece is a translation of at the conference.
In the speech, Miao expressed his concern over the operating system (OS), calling it "a more urgent and fatal issue than chips, and it is the key to success for intelligent vehicles and (V2X)," adding that though the landscape of global intelligent vehicles is still up in the air, the window left for China is about three years, five years at most.
Miao also elaborated on the relationships between chips and OS, and talked about how progress made in OS may help China out of the current semiconductor predicament.
Beware that the following speech was notes taken by , a Chinese news site, at the event, and the content and GRR’s translation have not been reviewed by the speaker.
The topic of my speech today is "on Key Issues Facing the Automobile Supply Chain."
For the supply chain of NEVs, let's pay attention to chips first.
Regarding the development of chips, chips for consumers hold high standards and the biggest demand for advanced chips, with chips used in smart phones as an example. However, smart cars are equipped with chips only secondary to ones for military use. They must operate in a worse environment compared with chips for consumers and chips for industrial use, and must have a longer lifespan. Moreover, in addition to the general standards, automotive chips must adapt to a series of automobile standards. For example, to test the reliability of chips, we usually use the AEC-Q100 standard, which is generally used in North America. To control the failure rate, we must establish a quality control system for chip makers, in other words, the IATF-16949 standard. This is a standard that automotive chips must meet as we are in line with the international standard now. For , ISO 26262 is another standard needed for certification. Therefore, there are more requirements for automotive chips, and the time needed for certification is longer.
In addition to chips, I would like to talk about software. In the era of computers, dominated the industry. Most PCs around the world operated on the Windows operating system. In the transition from traditional phones to smart phones, Apple Inc. created a closed-source operating system called iOS. In response, Google Android, an open-source operating system free of charge. Thus, in the era of smart phones, Apple occupies 10 to 20 percent of the market share, while the rest of the world's mobile phone companies go with the Android system.
In the past, I saw no problem in using an open-source operating system. However, the US began to clamp down on Huawei two years ago. Besides ceasing the chip supply, it also restricted the use of Android operating system. Instead of restricting Huawei's access to the Android OS, the US limited Huawei's use of apps that are operating on Android OS. As a result, Huawei had to equip smartphones with its HarmonyOS, an operating system originally for industrial use. In this way, Huawei managed to continue the service for customers. Otherwise, it couldn't maintain its customers even in China. But Huawei still lost huge swathes of the overseas market.
For the second part, I'd like to share my views on the development of the automotive chip supply chain.
Let me briefly introduce China's chip development in recent years. In terms of design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, chip design companies have made the fastest progress these years with the development of smart phones. Hisilicon 海思 of Huawei has made it to the world's top ten fabless integrated circuit companies. As I remember, it ranked fifth in its best record. Spreadtrum Communications 展讯 and RDA Microelectronics 锐迪科 also ranked among the world's top ten at one time. [GRR: It is Unigroup that made it to the top 10 in 2017. But Unigroup acquired Spreadtrum and RDA in 2013 and 2014 respectively.] Unfortunately, after the US began to suppress Huawei, Huawei cannot make it to the top 10. Even if chips can be designed, no company provides and manufactures the chips for Huawei. Nevertheless, it's an indisputable fact that we have made fast progress in design capabilities.
In terms of countries, the US ranks first in chip design, with a market share of 68 percent, according to last year's statistics. Ranking second and third are China's Taiwan region and the Chinese mainland, with market shares of 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
As for packaging and testing, China has a strength, and the smallest gap with the world's leading level. Of the world's top ten packaging companies, five are located in Taiwan, and three in the Chinese mainland. The three companies are JCET Group 长电科技, TongFu Microelectronics 通富微电 and Tianshui Huatian Technology 华天科技. The other two are located in the United States and Singapore.
We have met resistance in the tape-out of advanced chips. A solution is to package different types of chips together, which would address our weaknesses in advanced chips to some extent. This is also the mainstream of the international chip industry.
Tape-out is the process that we are left far behind. The best we can manufacture is 14 nm process chips. And because the , we are hampered in making more advanced chips. Although advanced chips are important, its current market share is still small in the global market distribution. The chip shortage that we suffered in recent years are mainly chips with 28 nm process and above, ranging from digital electronics, analog electronics, power semiconductor devices to sensor chips. Therefore, we must consolidate existing advantages first. Since we are not only curbed in the development of advanced chips, the insufficient production capacity for 28 nm chips and above is also a problem. Therefore, we are investing heavily to scale up the production of 28nm and more mature processes
Regarding automotive chips, a small number of AI chips are need in CPU and GPU. It's best to have advanced chips. But if not, there remain other solutions. In terms of the total amount, only a small proportion of automotive chips are advanced chips, and the majority is chips manufactured at mature nodes.
For vehicles, with the development of NEVs, the electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture shifts from decentralized ECU control to a newly designed platform that has centralized . Looking ahead, we will move towards building Central Vehicle Controller (CVC) on the basis of domain controllers. And every step towards centralization will promote the efficiency of automotive chips. Many chips cannot give full play to the on-board computing efficiency due to decentralized control and domain controller. Therefore, the future of vehicles is about marching towards the centralized computing architecture from domain controller. The trend has already been brought up a few years ago, and it's an upward slope.
On this basis, China must make forward-looking overall planning for cloud control platform. Many chip companies participated in the discussions this morning. I said that we all pay attention to the automotive chips used on automobiles. Recently, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed restrictions on Why GPU chips but not Nvidia's Orin chips? Yu Kai [the founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics] later told me that Nvidia's GPU chip is vital for training AI systems, so the US is targeting the vitals. What I'm trying to advocate is that other than focusing on automotive-grade AI chips, we also need to draw attention to training AI chips in the cloud.
, I don't even want to see their worse.
